^  JON  17  1968 

BS2423 


VIRGIN  BIRTH 


G.  w/mcPHERSON 

YONKERS,  N.  Y. 

For  twenty  years  Supt.  of  the  Old  Gospel  Tent 
Evangel  Movement,   Neiv    York   City. 


This  is  the  second  sermon  in  the  series  under 
the  general  topic,  Radicalism  Unmasked,  as 
given  in  the  Old  Tent  Evangel,  New  York  City, 
August,  1922,  in  which  the  author  discusses 
a  recent  sermon  by  Dr.  Harry  Emerson  Fosdick 
of  Union  Theological  Seminary  and  minister  at 
the  First  Presbyterian  Church,  in  which  mes- 
sage Dr.  Fosdick  has  attacked  the  Virgin  Birth 
of  Christ  and  other  fundamental  truths  of 
Christianity. 


"A  stand  must  be  made  against  liberalism  if  a 
shred  of  Christianity  is  to  be  left  for  transmis- 
sion to  the  generations  to  come."  Bishop  W.  A. 
Candler,  Atlanta. 


,  MAY  ^~   1968    . 


Books  by  G.  W.  McPherson: 

The  Virgin  Birth  of  Christ.  (Paper.  Single 
copies,  25  cents;  $7.00  per  100  copies;  $55.00 
per  1,000  copies.     Carriage  extra). 

The  Crisis  in  Church  and  College  (Cloth,  fifth 
edition,  262  pages  $1.45.     Carriage  extra). 

The  Modern  Conflict  Over  the  Bible  (Cloth,  fifth 
edition,  222  pages,  $1.45.     Carriage  extra). 

Socialism  and  the  New  Theolog^y  (paper.  Single 
copies,  25  cents.  $7.00  per  100  copies,  $65.00 
per   1,000  copies.     Carriage  extra). 

Radicalism  Unmasked  (paper).  A  reply  to  the 
attacks  upon  the  miracles  by  Dr.  Harry 
Emerson  Fosdick  and  the  Right  Rev. 
Howard  Chandler  Robins,  Dean  of  the 
Cathedral  of  Saint  John  the  Divine,  New 
York.  (Single  copies,  25  cents;  $7.00  per 
100  copies;  $65.00  per  1,000  copies.  Carriage 
extra). 

Publishers : 
YONKERS   BOOK   COMPANY 
34  St.  Andrews  PL,  Yonkers,  N.  Y. 


Copyright,  1922.  by  G.  W.  McPherson 
All   Rights  Reserved 


We 
VIRGIN    BIRTH 

REV.  G.  w.  Mcpherson 


A  reply  to  Dr.  Harry  Emerson 

Fosdick's  attack  upon  the  Virgin 

Birth  of  Christ 


SPECIAL  NOTICE 


The  author  of  this  message  desires  to  inform  the 
reader  that  he,  with  The  Old  Tent  Evangel  Committee 
of  Neiv  York  City  and  others,  have  decided  to  in- 
augurate a  large  movement  this  Fall  and  Winter,  hav- 
ing as  its  object  the  establishment  of  a  great  univer- 
sity in  New  York  City,  to  be  knozmi  as.  The  Inter- 
national Christian  University  of  Neiu  York,  with  theo- 
logical and  missionary  departments. 

The  writer's  experience,  covering  tzvcnty-five  years  of 
exposure  of  the  rationalistic  teaching,  has  convinced  him 
that  the  greatest  need  of  the  churches  is  such  an  insti- 
tution where  the  Bible,  as  God's  Word,  is  placed 
at  its  center  as  authority  in  religious  matters. 

Thousands  of  parents  have  written  for  information 
as  to  a  thoroughly  sound  university  where  they  might 
send  their  sons  and  daughters;  but  there  is  no  such 
institution  in  Protestant  America.  The  enemy  has 
captured  our  educational  institutions.  Our  timid 
Christian  educators  have  capitulated,  in  most  cases,  to 
the  poiver  of  money,  and  many  of  those  ivho  have  en- 
dowed our  institutions  and  others  have  been  betrayed. 

Orthodox  people  everyivhere  should  take  heroic  ac- 
tion or  all  will  be  lost.  This  great  object  calls  for 
a  fund  of  ten  million  dollars  ($10,000,000).  You  are 
respectfully  invited  to  write  us  your  opinion,  and  to 
furnish  names  of  prominent  people  who  are  interested 
in  religious  cducatifln.  Let  us  have  faith  in  Godf, 
Shall  zve  not  ask  of  Him  great  things,  and  expect  great 
things  from  Him,  and  attempt  great  things  for  Him? 

Sincerely   yours   in    His   Name,  » 

G.    W.    McPherson, 
34   St.  Andrews   Place, 

Yonkers,   N.   Y. 


THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 

The  purpose  of  this,  the  second  message  on  Radical- 
ism Unmasked,  is  to  discuss  the  recent  attack  upon 
the  fundamental  truths  of  the  Bible  by  Prof.  Harry 
Emerson  Fosdick  of  Union  Seminary  as  voiced  in  his 
printed  sermon  entitled:  "Shall  the  Fundamentalists 
Win?"  This  message  will  center  in  his  rejection  of 
the  Virgin  Birth  of  Christ. 

In  making  the  reply  to  Dr.  Fosdick  the  speaker  also 
has  in  mind  the  growing  army  of  rationalists  in  all 
our  churches   and   educational   institutions. 

DR.   FOSDICK'S   STATEMENT 

We  may  well  begin  with  the  vexed  and  mooted  question  of 
the  virgin  birth  of  our  Lord.  I  know  people  in  the  Christian 
churches,  ministers,  missionaries,  laymen,  devoted  lovers  of  the 
Lord  and  servants  of  the  Gospel,  who,  alike  as  they  are  in 
their  personal  devotion  to  the  Master  hold  quite  different 
points  of  view  about  a  matter  like  the  virgin  birth.  Here,  for 
example,  is  one  point  of  view:  that  the  virgin  birth  is  to  be 
accepted  as  historical  fact;  it  actually  happened;  there  was  no 
other  way  for  a  personality  like  the  Master  to  come  into  this 
world  except  by  a  special  biological  miracle.  That  is  one 
point  of  view  .  .  .  But  side  by  side  with  them  in  the 
evangelical  churches  is  a  group  of  equally  loyal  and  reverent 
people  who  would  say  that  the  virgin  birth  is  not  to  be  accepted 
as  an  historic  fact.  To  believe  in  virgin  birth  as  an  explana- 
tion of  great  personality  is  one  of  the  familiar  ways  in  which 
the  ancient  world  was  accustomed  to  account  for  unusual 
superiority.  Many  people  suppose  that  only  once  in  history 
do  we  run  across  a  record  of  supernatural  birth.  Upon  the 
contrary,  stories  of  miraculous  generation  are  among  the  com- 
monest traditions  of  antiquity.  Especially  is  this  true  about 
the  founders  of  great  religions.  According  to  the  records  of 
their  faiths,  Buddha  and  Zoroaster  and  Lao-Tsze  and  Mahavira 
were  all  supernaturally  born. 


THE    VIRGIN    BIRTH 


Here  then  we  have  Dr.  Fosdick's  rather  labored 
argument,  given  to  discredit  the  trustworthiness  of 
the  Scripture  accounts  of  the  Virgin  Birth  of  Christ. 
You  have  noticed  in  his  statement  these  words : 

The  two  men  who  contributed  most  to  the  Church's 
thought  of  the  divine  meaning  of  the  Christ  were  Paul  and 
John,  who  never  even  distantly  allude  to  the  virgin  birth. 

And, 

According  to  the  records  of  their  faiths,  Buddha  and 
Zoroaster,,  and  others  were  all  supernaturally  born, 

by  which  Dr.  Fosdick  means  to  affirm,  they  were  sup- 
posed to  have  been  virgin-born. 

We  now  ask:  Are  these  statements  true?  The 
Virgin  Birth  of  Christ  is  placed  on  a  level  with  the 
births  of  Buddha.  Zoroaster,  Plato,  Augustus  Caesar, 
and  others,  the  implication  being  that  faith  in  the 
alleged  virgin  births  of  these  pagans  is  as  justifiable 
as  faith  in  the  Virgin  Birth  of  Christ.  That  is  the 
meaning  of  this  preacher's  words,  and  they  are  not 
susceptible  of  any  other  interpretation. 

BUDDHA 

What  are  the  facts,  and  shall  we  accept  Dr.  Fosdick's 
words  as  true,  and  reject  the  New  Testament  records 
as  spurious  regarding  the  supernatural  conception  of 
our  Lord  and  Savior  Jesus  Christ? 

Dr.  Fosdick  says  that  Buddha  was  claimed  to  have 
been  virgin-born.  I  have  read  a  book  entitled :  "The 
Message  of  Buddha,"  by  Subharda  Bhikkhu,  and 
edited  by  J.  E^  Ellam  who  is  the  general  secretary  of 
the  Buddhist  Society  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland, 
in  which  the  author  makes  no  claim  for  Buddha  as  hav- 
ing been  virgin-born.  If  there  were  any  such  tradition 
in  any  of  the  ancient  writings  concerning  Buddha, 
this  author  would  not  have  failed  to  refer  to  it.  Max 
Muller,   who   is    recognized    as   one    of   the    greatest 


THE  VIRGIN   BIRTH 


Western  authorities  on  matters  pertaining  to  Oriental 
religions,  is  silent  regarding  any  such  claim  as  having 
been  made  by  the  ancient  Buddhists.  Dr.  James  Orr 
says  that  in  none  of  the  ancient  Buddhist  writing,  for 
200  or  300  years  after  his  birth,  has  anything  been 
found  to  claim  him  as  virgin-born.  Prof.  E.  L.  Goona- 
sakara  of  India,  says: 

There  is  not  a  syllable  of  truth  in  Dr.  Fosdick's  claim  for 
Buddha.  No  ancient  Buddhist  writer  of  note  has  made  any 
such  claim.  This  has  been  said  of  Buddha  chiefly  by  modern 
Buddhists  and  Western  rationalists  who  are  laboring  to  rid 
the  Christian  people  of  belief  in  the  supernatural  element  in 
the   Bible. 

Maurice  Maeterlinck,  the  Belgian  author,  in  his 
book  entitled :  "The  Great  Secret,"  in  which  he  treats 
of  Oriental  religions,  lays  no  claim  to  Buddha  as  hav- 
ing been  supernaturally  or  virgin-born.  Robert  E. 
Speer  confirms  the  above  witnesses.     He  says : 

The  stories  of  the  life  of  Buddha  in  the  Buddhist  Scriptures 
which  resemble  at  all  the  stories  in  the  Gospels,  resemble 
them  in  the  same  way  in  which  medieval  legends  resemble 
them,  and  moreover,  they  arose  long  after  Buddha's  death, 
(The  Light  of  the  World  p.  64). 

ZOROASTER 

As  to  Zoroaster,  Maeterlinck  says : 
The  doubtful  incarnations  of  the  Hermes,  the  Manus,  and 
the    Zoroasters    cannot    be    historically    verified,    (p.    69), 

by  which  he  means  to  affirm  that  such  claims  have 
not  come  down  to  us  from  any  of  the  ancient  writ- 
ing concerning  these  men. 

Maeterlinck  reminds  his  readers  that  the  peoples 
of  various  countries 

are  familiar  with  the  old  myth  of  the  child  born  of  a  virgin  and 
that  the  first  Jesuit  missionary  to  China  discovered  that  the 
miraculous  birth  of  Christ  had  been  anticipated  by  Huf-Ke 
who  lived  3468  before  Jesus,   (p,  68). 


THE   VIRGIN    BIRTH 


Thus  we  see  there  was  a  myth  story  of  the  in- 
carnation of  Deity  in  our  humanity,  which  came  down 
from  age  to  age,  and  which  the  authorities  tell  us 
probably  originated  in  Inda,  though  no  one  ventures 
to  afifirm  just  when  or  where  it  had  its  origin.  It  is 
purely   an  unverified  myth. 

From  these  facts.  I  think  it  is  quite  apparent  that 
Dr.  Fosdick's  claim  for  Buddha  and  Zoroaster  and  oth- 
ers as  having  been  virgin-born,  cannot  be  substantiated 
as  fact,  from  any  known  reliable  source  or  authority, 
and  I  Challenge  Him  to  Prove  the  Contrary  from 
"The  Records  of  their  Faith."  He  says. 
according  to  the   records   of   their   faith,   these, 

and  others  which  he  named, 
were  supernaturally  born; 

but  he  submitted  no  references.  Why?  Because 
there  are  no  such  ancient  records.  We  may  well  raise 
the  query :  Can  a  preacher  and  teacher  who  will  make 
such  a  misleading  statement  and  put  it  in  print,  and 
send  it  broadcast  for  the  purpose  of  winning  others  to 
his  views  and  thus  destroying  faith  in  the  deity  of 
Christ  be  trusted  when  he  speaks  on  other  matters 
which  deal  vitally  with  the  Christian  Religion?  This  in- 
ferential argument  to  disprove  the  Virgin  Birth  of  our 
Lord  was  made  on  the  basis  of  the  old  myth  stories 
and  fables,  and  we  must  ask :  Is  this  fair  treatment 
of  so  great  a  matter?  Is  it  fair  to  use  these  myth  stories 
as  an  argument  against  the  New  Testament  records, 
in  order  to  refute  or  undermine  them,  and  thus  de- 
stroy the  faith  of  Christians  in  the  Virgin  Birth  of 
Christ?  While  I  give  no  credence  to  the  above  myth 
story,  nevertheless  it  would  appear  more  reasonable 
for  the  rationalists  to  say  that  this  story  may  be  true, 
namely :  that  Deity  would  at  some  great  day  in  the 
history  of  Man  become  incarnate  in  our  race,  and  that 
God,  in  this  way  was,  in  part,  preparing  the  minds  of 


THE  VIRGIN   BIRTH 


men,  in  a  prophetic  manner,  as  he  did  by  the  Messi- 
anic prophecies  in  the  Old  Testament,  for  the  incarna- 
tion of  His  Son,  the  revelation  of  His  redeeming  love, 
and  the  salvation  of  the  world.  I  submit  that  this 
would  be  a  more  reasonable  view  for  them  to  take 
than  to  use  such  stories  as  an  argument  against  the 
Virgin  Birth  of  Christ,  though  I  do  not  believe  that 
God  had  any  such  purpose  in  any  myth  story. 

Furthermore,  had  it  been  the  custom  of  the  ancients 
to  eulogize  their  national  leaders — Augustus  Caesar 
and  others — as  having  been  virgin  born,  this  cannot 
be  fairly  used  as  an  argument  against  the  Virgin 
Birth  of  Christ,  for  there  had  never  been  discovered 
anything  in  the  lives  of  those  ancient  leaders  in  the 
Roman  Empire  to  convince  any  sane  person  that  they 
were  virgin-born.  History  shows  that  the  intelligent 
peoples  of  those  times  did  not  themselves  accept  these 
stories  as  true.  But  the  case  is  entirely  different  with 
Christ  as  we  shall  show.  The  question  regarding 
these  incarnations  of  pagan  deities  in  men  will  be 
looked  into  more  fully  a  little  later. 

WHAT  PAUL  AND  JOHN  REALLY  SAID: 

We  shall  now  examine  the  statement  of  Dr.  Fosdick 
regarding  the  teachings  of  Paul  and  John.  In  order 
to  justify  his  own  disbelief  in  the  Virgin  Birth  of  our 
Blessed    Lord   and   Savior   he   says: 

Knowing  this  [referring  to  what  he  stated  regarding  Bud- 
dha, Zoroaster  and  others  as  being  virgin  born]  there  arc 
within  the  Christian  churches  large  groups  of  people  whose 
opinion  about  our  Lord's  coming  would  run  as  follows:  those 
first  disciples  adored  Jesus — as  we  do;  when  they  thought 
about  his  coming  they  were  sure  that  he  came  especially  from 
God — as  we  are;  this  adoration  and  conviction  they  asso- 
ciated with  God's  special  influence  and  intention  in  his  birth 
— as  we  do;  but  they  phrased  it  in  terms  of  a  biological  miracle 
that  our  modern  minds  cannot  use.  So  far  from  thinking  that 
they  have  given  up  anything  vital  in  the  New  Testament's 
attitude  toward  Jesus,  these  Christians  remember  that  the  two 


THE    VIRGIN    BIRTH 


men  who  contributed  most  to  the  Church's  thought  of  the 
divine  meaning  of  the  Christ  were  Paul  and  John,  who  never 
even  distantly  allude  to  the  virgin  birth. 

This  on  the  surface  would  appear  to  be  a  formidable 
indictment.  But  we  shall  see  that,  when  closely  ex- 
amined and  taken  to  pieces,  it  is  a  boomerang  upon 
the   head  of  the   objector. 

/     This  is  what  Dr.  Orr  says : 

^  It  is  true  that  Matthew  and  Luke  give  us  a  full  record  of 
the  virgin  birth.  But  has  any  one  the  right  to  assume  that 
Paul  and  John  knew  nothing  about  it  because  their  writings 
contain  no  specific  reference  to  it?  [Dr.  Fosdick  evidently 
so  assumes].  Who  knew  of  it  to  begin  with?  Joseph  and 
Mary  of  course  alone  knew  the  facts  fully  and  intimately. 
They  alone  could  give  authentic  and  complete  narratives  re- 
garding them  such  as  we  possess.  But  can  we  stop  here? 
There  was  at  least  one  other  that  knew  of  the  facts  in  some 
degree — I  mean  Mary's  kinswoman,  Elizabeth  the  mother  of 
John  the  Baptist.  Shortly  after  the  angel's  announcement  to 
lierself  Mary  paid  Elizabeth  a  visit  to  the  hill-country  of  Judea 
.  .  .  and  Elizabeth  in  an  excess  of  inspiration  "filled  with 
the  Holy  Ghost"  greeted  Mary  as  the  blessed  among  women 
and  mother  of  her  Lord.  She  went  on:  "Blessed  is  she  that 
believed;  for  there  shall  be  a  fulfillment  of  the  things  which 
have  been  spoken  to  her  of  the  Lord."  Mary  moved  by 
like  inspiration  responded  in  the  hymn  we  call  the  Magnificat. 
Here  then,  we  have  one  person  who  certainly  did  know  that 
Mary  was,  bydivine  power,  to  be  the  mother  of  the  Christ. 
(Orr.— The  Virgin  Birth— pp.  92,  93.) 

This  great  authority  further  states: 

The  shepherds  who  visited  the  new-born  Savior  knew 
nothing  of  his  miraculous  birth;  but  they  had  a  knowledge 
that  the  child  born  was  Christ  the  Lord,  and  that  extraordinary 
signs  accompanied  the  birth.  And  they  praised  God.  Fur- 
ther still,  Simeon  and  Anna,  at  the  presentation  of  Jesus 
in  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  knew  how  the  babe  born  was  the 
Lord's  Christ  .  .  .  set  the  falling  and  rising  again  of 
many  in  Isr.Tl.  (Luke  2:20).  For  various  good  reasons  the 
miraculous  conception  was  a  matter  that  Mary  and  Joseph 
could  not  talk  about  openly  to  their  friends.  Delicacy  forbade 
it. 


THE  VIRGIN   BIRTH 


But  as  we  have  seen,  God  revealed  it  to  others  of 
His  saints,  and  the  glorious  news  became  the  com- 
mon possession  of  all  the  disciples.  Indeed  it  is  the 
Holy  Spirit  only  who  can  show  us  the  truth  of  this 
sacred  mystery.  We  shall  see  that  Dr.  Fosdick's  ar- 
gument from  the  alleged  silence  of  John  and  Paul  is 
really  no  argument  at  all. 

But  to  come  direct  to  Dr.  Fosdick's  argument  from 
the  alleged  silence  of  Paul  and  John.  Silence  can 
hardly  affirm  or  deny.  Matthew  and  Luke  are  two 
good  witnesses  and  any  court  would  hang  a  preacher 
on  the  testimony  of  two  witnesses.  Why  then  argue 
against  these  two  witnesses  from  the  silence  of  Paul 
and  Tohn.^ 

Take  John :  What  does  he  really  say  ?  "The  Word 
y/became  flesh."  (John  1.  14.)  How  it  became  flesh 
he  does  not  tell. 

j^  Do  not  his  words  assume  an  exceptional  mode  of  birth? 
Are  they  not  presumptive  evidence  of  what  the  other  gospel 
writers  so  plainly  reveal?  It  would  be  as  reasonable  to  argue 
that  John's  words  meant  to  deny  that  Jesus  was  ever  born  at 
all  as  that  he  meant  to  deny  that  His  birth  was  such  as  Luke 
and  Matthew  describe.  .  .  .  John  had  the  gospel  of  Mat- 
thew and  Luke  in  his  hand  when  he  wrote  his  Gospel,  at 
a  time  when  the  Virgin  Birth  was  already  a  general  article 
of  belief  in  the  Church.  Doubtless  John  knew  of  the  Virgin 
Birth.  Does  he  repudiate  it?  No.  Does  he  contradict  it? 
No.  Does  he  correct  it?  No.  Then  we  have  a  right  to  be- 
lieve that  he  accepted  it.  Such  a  story,  if  untrue,  would  have 
been  a  slur  on  Mary's  good  name,  and  John,  who  was  com- 
missioned by  Jesus  to  care  for  his  mother,  would  have  re- 
sented the  slander.  (Orr.) 

PURPOSE  OF  JOHN'S  GOSPEL 
But  the  purpose  John  had  in  mind  in  writing  his 
gospel  throws  light  on  this  whole  matter.  The  supreme 
heresy  to  John  was  the  denial  that  "Jesus  Christ  had 
come  in  the  flesh,"  and  his  marvelous  book  is  a  refuta- 
tion of  that  heresy.     With  one  stroke  of  his  pen  he  be- 


10  THE  VIRGIN   BIRTH 

gins  with  the  Divinity  of  Christ,  "In  the  beginning  was 
the  Word,"  and  the  unity  of  Christ  the  eternal  Son  with 
the  Father,  "and  the  Word  was  with  God,"  and  the 
Deity  of  the  Son,  "and  the  Word  was  God."  Then  he 
proceeds  to  show  throughout  his  Gospel  the  glory,  au- 
thority and  power  of  the  eternal  Son  of  God.  The 
whole  book  assumes  a  miraculous  birth. 

PURPOSE  OF  PAUL'S  EPISTLE 

Now  a  word  as  to  Dr.  Fosdick's  reference  to  the  al- 
leged silence  of  Paul.  I  think  it  will  be  seen  that  this, 
the  greatest  of  the  Apostles,  believed  and  taught  the 
supernatural  origin  of  the  Son  of  God  in  our  Humanity. 

What  was  Paul's  main  purpose  in  writing  his  epistles 
to  the  churches,  whose  members  believed  in  the  super- 
natural birth  of  Jesus?  His  purpose  was  not  so  much 
to  recall  the  incidents  in  Christ's  life,  (that  had  already 
been  done  by  the  other  writers)  incidents  with  which 
he  and  the  Christians  were  familiar.  His  great  purpose 
centers  in  the  fact  of  Christ's  atoning  death  and  resur- 
rection. These  were  his  great  compelling  themes.  Paul 
who  knew  of  the  Virgin  Birth  saw  clearly  that  its  great- 
est defense  was  found  in  the  death  and  resurrection  of 
Christ,  in  short,  in  the  person  and  work  of  Christ.  To 
Paul 

the  Incarnation  rested  on  its  own  evidence  as  seen  in  Christ's 
•matchless  character,  and  as  attested  by  the  resurrection.  On 
these  facts  therefore  Paul  builds,  and  not  on  so  essentially 
private  and  delicate  a  nature  as  the  Virgin  Birth.  Did  Paul 
know  about  the  birth  from  a  virgin?  of  course  he  did,  for 
Luke,  who  narrates  it  in  his  Gospel,  was  the  travelling  com- 
panion of  Paul  and  everything  Luke  knew  of  this  matter  Paul 
knew.      (Orr). 

,  Paul  speaks  of  "God  sending  his  Son  in  the  likeness  of 
sinful  flesh,  and  as  an  offering  for  sin  condemned  sin  in 
the  flesh."  And,  "He  emptied  himself,  taking  the  form 
of  a  servant,  becoming  in  the  likeness  of  men."     These 


THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH  11 

words  pre-suppose  a  supernatural  birtli.  Note  them: 
God  "sends"  His  Son;  Christ  "empties"  Himself,  "tak- 
ing the  form  of  a  servant."  is  "made,"  or  "in  the  likeness 
of  men."  "The  thought  is :  The  Son  of  God  voluntarily 
enters  our  nature,  yet  there  is  a  clear  distinction  between 
His  Deity  and  humanity  here  suggested.  He  is  one 
of  us  yet  not  of  us.  Paul's  thought  here  could  be  put  in 
Luke's  phrase,  'that  holy  thing  that  shall  be  born,'  be- 
cause God  is  in  His  origin." 

Or  note  Paul's  remarkable  passage:  Gal.  4:4.  "God 
sent  forth  His  Son,  born  of  a  woman,  born  under  the 
law."  I  am  sure  that  from  these  passages  Dr.  Fosdick 
is  quite  in  error  in  saying  that  Paul  did  not  even  "dis- 
tantly allude"  to  the  Virgin  Brth  or  incarnation  of  the 
Son  of  God,  and  that  he  cannot  fairly  use  what  he  terms 
the  silence  of  Paul  and  John  to  disapprove  that  great 
miracle. 

OLD   TESTAMENT    MESSIANIC    PREDICTIONS 

We  can  on!}'  discuss  briefly  the  Messianic  predictions 
as  found  in  the  Old  Testament.  Sufifice  it  to  say  that 
these  are  numerous,  and  set  forth  the  fact  of  our  Lord's 
advent  and  work  of  redemption.  The  first  prophecy  is 
found  in  Genesis:  3:15.  The  seed  of  the  woman  "shall 
bruise"  the  serpent's  head,  not  the  seed  of  the  man.  And 
in  Isaiah :  "Behold  a  virgin  shall  conceive  and  bring- 
forth  a  son,  and  shall  call  his  name  Immanuel,"  (Isa. 
7:14).  And  agan,  "For  unto  us  a  child  is  born,  unto  us 
a  son  is  given :  and  the  government  shall  be  upon  his 
shoulder,  and  his  name  shall  be  called  Wonderful,  Coun- 
sellor, the  mighty  God,  the  Everlasting  Father,  the 
Prince  of  Peace.  Of  the  increase  of  his  government  and 
peace  there  shall  be  no  end.  .  .  .  The  zeal  of  the 
Lord  of  hosts  will  perform  this."  (Isa.  9:6-7).  Even 
the  place  of  his  birth  was  foretold.  "But  thou  Beth- 
lehem, Ephratah,  though  thou  be  little  among  the  thou- 
sands of  Judah,  yet  out  of  thee  shall  he  come  forth  unto 


12  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 

me,  who  is  to  be  ruler  in  Israel ;  whose  goings  forth  have 
been  from  of  old,  from  everlasting."  (Mich.  5:2).  And 
the  remarkable  description  of  Christ  as  given  in  the  53rd 
Ch.  of  Isaiah,  in  which  he  is  presented  as  the  suffering 
servant  of  Jehovah,  bearing  and  carrying  away  by  his 
own  stripes  and  death  the  sins  of  humanity,  and  numer- 
ous other  striking  prophecies,  all  of  which  were  fulfilled 
in  Jesus  Christ. 

WITNESS  OF  THE  EARLY  CHURCH 

Time  also  fails  me  to  discuss  fully  the  witness  of  the 
early  church.  I  would  remind  you  that  the  whole 
Church,  with  the  exception  of  one  or  two  schismatic 
sects,  the  Ebionites,  who  were  apostate  Jewish  Christians, 
and  the  Gnostics,  both  of  whom  later  became  practically 
extinct,  all  bore  witness — yes,  thousands  of  them  bore 
witness,  even  unto  death,  to  our  Saviour's  miraculous 
birth  and  resurrection. 

And  the  early  Church,  not  simply  believed  it,  but  stated 
it  as  a  doctrinal  fact  of  the  higest  importance,  by  the  ac- 
ceptance of  which  a  genuine  Christianity  is  distinguished  from 
a  spurious.  The  Apostles  Creed,  which  dates  back  to  the  first 
century,  affirms  it.  So  says  Harnack,  Zahn,  and  Kattenbusch. 
There  we  find  the  article:  Who  was  born  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
and  the  Virgin  Mary.  Ireneus  writes  in  175  A.  D.:  The 
Church,  though  dispersed  throughout  the  whole  world.  .  ., 
has  received  from  the  Apostles  and  their  disciples  this  faith. 
She  believes  in  one  God,  the  Father  Almighty,  Maker  of 
heaven  and  earth.  .  .  and  in  One  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of 
God,  who  became  incarnate  for  our  salvation;  and  in  the  Holy 
Spirit,  who  proclaimed  through  the  prophets  and  dispensations 
of  God,  and  the  advent,  and  the  birth  from  a  Virgin,  and  the 
passion  and  the  resurrection  from  the  dead,  etc.  (Iren.  1,  10; 
cf.  iii.  4;   IV,  35).     (Orr). 

One  of  the  earliest  writers  is  Ignatius  (about  100 
A.D.)     He  speaks  of  the  birth  from  a  virgin  as  one  of 

the  three  mysteries  of  renown,  wrought  in  the  silence  of 
God.  Stop  your  ears,  he  says  to  the  Trallians,  when  anyone 
speaks  to  you  at  variance  with  Jesus  Christ,  who  was  descended 


THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH  13 

from  David  and  also  of  Mary;  and  again  to  the  Ephesians,  he 
says:  "For  our  God,  Jesus  Christ,  was,  according  to  the  ap- 
pointment of  God,  conceived  in  the  womb  of  Mary,  of  the 
seed  of  David,  but  of  the  Holy  Ghost." 

These  words  show  that  this  faith  was  accepted  by  the 
whole  Church  in  the  first  century.  Ignatius  gives  good 
advice  for  the  churches  today  when  they  hear  an  attack 
upon  this  truth  from  the  pulpit.  Doubtless,  if  the  mem- 
bers of  the  First  Presbyterian  Church  were  as  well  in- 
formed regarding  this  great  matter,  as  were  the  Chris- 
tians in  Ignatius'  time,  they  would  refuse  not  only  to 
support  with  their  gifts  such  a  ministry,  they  would 
have  vacated  the  edifice  when  Dr.  Fosdick's  sermon  was 
being  delivered,  and  leave  the  Professor  to  preach  it 
to  the  empty  walls  and  his  own  exaggerated  ego.  Had 
they  done  their  full  duty,  they  would  have  locked  that 
sacred  place  against  any  preacher  who  would  attempt 
to  snatch  the  crown  of  Deity  from  the  brow  of  the  Son 
of  God. 

EXAMINATION   OF  PAGAN   MYTHS 

Now  I  ask  you  to  return  with  me  and  note  some  fur- 
ther facts  regarding  the  old  pagan  myths  which  Dr. 
Fosdick  uses  to  belittle  the  Virgin  Birth  of  Christ,  and 
note  the  dissimilarity  between  these  ancient  pagan  myth 
stories  and  the  New  Testament  records  of  our  Lord's 
birth  as  found  in  Matthew  and  Luke.  This  is  a  very  im- 
portant part  of  our  discussion.  For  years  the  critics  of 
the  Virgin  Birth  have  been  laboring  to  prove  that  these 
pagan  myths  and  fables  constitute  the  background  and 
foundation  for  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation. 
You  saw  how  D^r.  Fosdick  classed  them  all  as  on  a  com- 
mon level.  What  then  are  the  facts  as  to  these  myths 
and  fables?  Our  opponent  labors  to  convince  the  Chris- 
tian people  that  the  powerful  impressions  made  by  Jesus 
upon  the  disciples  led  them  to  worship  Him  and  ac- 
cept Him  as  Son  of  God  and  Messiah  from  heaven,  and 


14  THE  VIRGIN   BIRTH 

that  he  would  return  on  the  clouds ;  and  so  he  argues  that 
the  pagan  myths  furnished  to  them  an  illustration  of  our 
Lord's  mode  of  coming  into  this  world.  In  other  words, 
the  story  of  the  Virgin  Birth  is  simply  their  poetic  de- 
scription of  the  greatness  of  Jesus. 

Dr.  Fosdick  does  not  base  his  objection  to  the  Virgin 
Birth  of  Christ  on  the  alleged  discrepancies  between  the 
two  accounts  as  given  by  Matthew  and  Luke,  for  he 
probably  knows  that  these  accounts  have  been  shown, 
by  biblicar  scholars,  to  be  independent  and  complementary 
and  not  contradictory  as  shallow  critics  have  affirmed 
them  to  be.  Matthew  tells  the  story  from  Joseph's  point 
of  view,  and  Luke  from  Mary's  point  of  view,  and  the 
one  supplements  and  completes  the  other,  and  both  to- 
gether are  needed  to  give  the  whole  story.  Neither  does 
our  opponent  attack  the  genealogical  records  as 
is  sometimes  done  by  superficial  readers  of  these 
accounts,  for  he  probably,  also,  knows  that  the 
Jews  always  traced  the  line  of  descent  through 
the  father  who  was  the  leg-al  head  of  the  fam- 
ily. "It  is  true  that  the  genealogies  present  prob- 
lems, but  these  do  not  touch  the  central  fact  of  the  be- 
lief of  Matthew  and  Luke  in  the  birth  from  a  Virgin." 
These  problems,  however,  have  been  cleared  up.  Dr. 
Fosdick  knowing  that  he  could  not  speak  of  contradic- 
tions in  a  case  like  this,  directs  his  attack  from  another 
angle.  He  believes  that  he  can  disprove  the  Virgin 
Birth  by  arguing  from  the  use  made  in  those  times  of 
myths  and  fables.    He  says : 

Pythagoras,  Plato,  and  Augustus  Caesar,  and  others,  were 
called   virgin   born. 

But  what  are  the  facts?  The  pagans  believed  that  the 
gods  could  come  to  earth  and  co-habit  with  women. 
Their  conceptions  as  to  this  are,  perhaps,  the  most  base 
and  revolting  thing  we  find  in  literature,  ancient  or  mod- 
ern. A  degraded  pagan  god  comes  to  a  pure  family  and 
takes  the  wife,  or  sister,  or  daughter,  the  one  which  best 


THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH  15 

suits  his  lust,  and  for  the  time  being  makes  her  his  wife, 
and  then  the  offspring  of  this  adulterous  god  is  a  super- 
man, a  god-man,  a  hero.  So  debasing  are  these  myths 
that  in  one  case  we  find  that  a  god,  Zeus  by  name,  tells 
how  he  co-habited  with  a  maiden  by  transforming  him- 
self first  into  the  form  of  a  serpent.  Soltau  tells  us 
that  Alexander  testified  that  he 

was  begotten  of  a  serpent  co-habiting  with  his  mother,  that  he 
was  not  the  bodily  son  of  Philip. 

And  Soltau  also  tells  us,  that  the  Emperor  Augustus 

was  careful  that  the  fable  should  be  widely  diffused  to  the 
effect  that  his  mother  was  once,  while  asleep  in  the  temple  of 
Apollo,  visited  by  the  god  in  the  form  of  a  serpent,  and  that  in 
the  tenth  month  afterwards  he  himself  was  born.  .  .  .  The 
Emperor  did  everything  in  his  power  to  spread  the  belief  that 
Apollo   was   his    father.     (Orr). 

But  in  these  ridiculous  stories  there  is  no  suggestion 
that  Alexander's  mother  or  Augusta's  mother  was  a  vir- 
gin. In  fact,  no  ancient  pagan  writers  claimed  virgin  birth 
for  any  one  of  their  heroes.  They  did  claim  that  their 
heroes,  as  Alexander,  Caesar,  and  others,  were  sons  of 
the  gods,  but  for  them  there  was  made  no  claim  of  virgin 
birth.  These  pagan  gods  are  presented  as  having  carnal 
relations  with  women,  and  the  issue  were  great  heroes, 
but  there  is  no  claim  made  that  these  heroes  were 
virgin  born.  This  is  the  fact  regarding  those  revolting 
myths  which  Dr.  Fosdick  places  on  an  equality  with  the 
Virgin  Birth  of  our  Divine  Lord. 

It  should  be  said  that  such  stories  are  the  merest  buf- 
foonery, and  the  wisest  and  best  people  in  the  ancient 
pagan  nations  did  not  believe  them.  Who,  except  a 
politician,  who  sought  to  win  the  adoration  of  the  peo- 
ple, would  say  that  his  father  was  a  god  in  the  shape  of 
a  serpent,  or  ox,  or  bird,  or  lover?  That  would  be  as 
absurd  as  the  present-day  claim  of  the  school  of  ration- 
alists, to  which  Dr.  Fosdick  belongs,  that  we  are  all 
the  offspring  of  monkeys,  apes  and  lizards.     Thus  Ter- 


16  THE  VIRGIN   BIRTH 

tullian,  the  Church  father,  who  was  familiar  with  these 
pagan  myths,  in  addressing  himself  to  the  pagans,  says: 

God's  own  Son  was  born, — but  not  so  born  as  to  make  Him 
ashamed  of  the  name  of  Son,  or  of  His  paternal  origin.  It 
was  not  his  lot  to  have  as  His  father,  by  incest  with  a  sister 
or  by  violation  of  a  daughter,  or  another's  wife,  a  god  in  the 
shape  of  a  serpent,  or  ox,  or  bird,  or  lover  for  his  vile  end 
transforming  himself  into  the  gold  of  Danaus.  These  are 
3'our  divinities  upon  whom  these  base  deeds  of  Jupiter  were 
done. 

My  friends,  what  is  the  inescapable  conclusion,  if  Dr. 
Fosdick  is  right?  Is  it  not  this:  that  the  Jews  are  right 
to-day,  and  have  been  for  1900  years,  as  they  were  in 
Pilate's  Hall  when  they  cried,  "Crucify  Him,  Crucify 
Him."  They  hurled  their  anathemas  at  Jesus  then  be- 
cause they  did  not  believe  in  the  Virgin  Birth,  in  His 
claim  to  be  the  Son  of  God,  and  that  He  would  appear 
the  second  time.  And  Dr.  Fosdick  is  an  ally  of  that 
tenacious  unbelief  that  has  ever  cried,  "Crucify  Him !" 
If  Dr.  Fosdick  is  right,  our  faith  is  a  colossal  delusion, 
we  are  of  all  men  most  pitiable,  for  his  Christ  is  only  a 
"poor  deluded  Jewish  peasant,  born  out  of  wedlock, 
quickly  put  away  and  never  to  return,"  and  Unitarian - 
ism  should  become  the  universal  religion.  But  thank 
God  Dr.  Fosdick's  claim  is  false,  I  think  we  have  seen 
clearly  the  utter  groundlessness  of  his  argument  to 
disprove  the  Virgin  Birth  of  Christ. 

You  see  that  this  great  Church  father  Tertullian  was 
showing  these  pagans  that  there  was  no  ground  of 
comparison  between  their  revolting  myths  and  the 
Gospel  records  of  the  Virgin  Birth  of  Christ.  Yet  Dr. 
Fosdick  places  them  on  an  equality.    Dr.  Gore  says : 

None  of  the  pagan  writers  cited  refers  to  Plato  as  born  of 
a  virgin. 

And  Dr.  Orr,  as  already  shown,  affirms  that  no  pagan 
writer  of  any  note  for  at  least  200  or  300  years  ever 
claimed  that  Buddha  was  virgin  born.  I  have  never 
read  a  piece  of  literature,  of  the  same  compass,  as  Dr. 


THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH  17 

Fosdick's  sermon,  in  which  I  have  found  so  many  mis- 
leading statements.  Was  his  deception  intentional?  But 
this  is  characteristic  of  the  arguments  used  by  the  re- 
ligious liberalists  in  their  attempts  to  disprove  the 
Deity  of  Christ. 

It  should  be  observed  that  even  some  of  the  most  noted 
of  the  extreme  critics,  like  Dr.  Cheyne  and  Gunkel,  have 
given  up  this  explanation  regarding  the  origin  of  the 
alleged  virgin  birth  of  our  Lord,  as  taught  by  Dr.  Fos- 
dick,  though  all  the  school  of  rationalists  reject  the  Vir- 
gin Birth  of  Christ.  And  I  would  again  stress  the 
fact  that  the  decent  and  most  intelligent  people  in  Greece 
and  Rome  were  ashamed  of  these  myth  stories  and  re- 
pudiated them. 

Plato  would  have  banished  these  stories  from  his  Republic. 
They  were  as  Tertullian  tells  us,  the  subjects  of  public  ridicule. 
It  is  a  strange  imagination  that  can  suppose  that  these  foul 
tales  could  be  taken  over  by  the  Church,  and  in  the  short 
space  before  the  writing  of  our  Gospels,  become  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  beautiful  and  chaste  narratives  of  Matthew  and 
Luke.     (Orr). 

DR.  FOSDICK'S  "NEW  KNOWLEDGE?" 

Now  my  friends,  we  should  know  that  this  attack  upon 
Christianity  is  really  not  modern,  that  there  is  nothing  new 
in  this  treacherous  argument  against  the  divine  honor 
and  Deity  of  our  Lord,  for  it  is  as  old  as  the  Church. 
Dr.  Fosdick,  in  his  sermon,  would  have  you  believe  that 
his  teaching  is  based  on  "new  knowledge"  regarding  the 
"universe  and  its  origin"  and  on  the  life  of  Christ,  un- 
known to  the  scholars  in  ages  past.  But  he  has  not  given 
us  any  facts  to  prove  that  he  is  in  possession  of  any  "new 
knowledge."  He  pits  the  rationalists  against  the  ortho- 
dox people  and  labors  to  convince  the  Christians  every- 
where that  the  latter  are  "static,"  "mechanical,"  "reac- 
tionary," "medieval"  in  their  thinking  regarding  the  Bible 
and  lamentably  ignorant  as  to  the  real  Christ.  Has  he 
any  "new  knowledge"  as  to  the  "origin  of  the  universe" 


18  THE  VIRGIN   BIRTH 

aside  from  the  two  speculative  hypotheses,  the  planetary 
and  nebular?  I  Challenge  Him  to  Submit  it!  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  the  "origin  of  the  universe"  is  as  much  a 
mystery  today  as  it  was  in  the  long  ago,  and  only  as 
we  accept  Revelation,  as  given  in  the  Bible,  do  we  know 
anything  about  this  great  matter.  But  this  man  has  re- 
jected Revelation,  as  given  in  the  Bible,  consequently, 
to  get  his  speculations  and  denials  of  God's  Word  across 
he  indulges  in  loud  sounding  words  which  deceive  only 
the  ignorant. 

IGNATIUS   GIVES   A   CHARACTER   SKETCH 

Ignatius,  the  Church  father,  who  lived  about  90  to  150 
A.D.,  accurately  describes  Dr.  Fosdick  and  his  school 
of  rationalists.     He  says  to  the  Trallians: 

I  therefore,  yet  not  I,  but  the  love  of  Jesus  Christ,  intreat 
you  that  ye  all  speak  the  same  thing,  and  that  there  be  no 
divisions  among  you;  but  that  ye  be  perfectly  joined  together 
in  the  same  mind,  and  in  the  same  judgment.  (1st  Cor.  1:10.) 
For  there  are  some  vain  talkers  and  deceivers,  not  Christians, 
but  Christ  betrayers,  bearing  about  the  name  of  Christ  in 
deceit,  and,  "corrupting  the  word  (1.  Cor.  1:10)  of  the  Gospel; 
while  they  intermix  the  poison  of  their  deceit  with  their  per- 
suasive talk,  as  if  they  mingled  aronite  with  sweet  wine,  that 
so  he  who  drinks,  being  deceived  in  his  taste  by  the  very 
sweetness  of  the  draught,  may  incautiously  meet  with  his 
death.  One  of  the  ancients  gives  us  this  advice:  Let  no 
man  be  called  good,  who  mixes  good  with  evil!  For  they 
speak  of  Christ  not  that  they  may  preach  Christ  but  that  they 
may  reject  Christ.  .  .  .  They  also  calumniate  his  being 
born  of  a  Virgin;  they  are  ashamed  of  his  Cross;  they  deny 
his  Passion;  and  they  do  not  believe  his  Resurrection.  .  .  . 
They  suppose  Christ  to  be  unbegotten.  .  .  .  Some  of  them 
say  that  Christ  is  a  mere  man,  and  that  the  Father,  the  Son, 
and  the  Holy  Ghost  are  but  the  same  person,  and  that  the 
creation  is  the  work  of  God,  not  by  Christ,  but  by  some 
other  power.     (Epistle  of  Ignatius  to  the  Trallians,  Ch.  VI.) 

One  would  imagine  that  this  character  sketch  was 
made  in  our  present  age  by  a  keen,  disgusted  university 


THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH  19 

or  seminary  student  or  member  of  a  church  where  mod- 
ernism is  tauj^ht,  so  accurately  does  Ignatius  describe 
our  modern  Arians. 

JEKYLL  AND  HYDE  THEOLOGIANS 
I  think  I  have  given  you  a  revelation  of  the  Jekyll 
and  Hyde  type  of  character  in  the  realm  of  modern  re- 
ligion. It  is  not  possible,  as  a  psychological  explana- 
tion, that  the  honored  mothers  of  our  rationalists  read 
Jekyll  and  Hyde  during  the  days  of  their  maternity  and 
thus  produced  those  double  characters,  those  apparent 
saints,  yet  perverters  of  the  truth.  No,  that  is  not  the 
explanation.  It  is  rather  found  in  the  character  of  the 
training  our  young  men  receive  in  many  of  our  col- 
leges and  theological  seminaries.  I  knew  the  teacher — 
the  late  Dr.  W.  N.  Clarke — who  shaped  the  thinking  of 
Dr.  Fosdick.  I  studied  theology  for  three  years  under 
Dr.  Clarke,  in  the  same  seminary  where  Dr.  Fosdick  was 
a  student,  and,  fortunately,  I  knew  my  Bible  sufficiently, 
before  I  knew  Clarke,  to  be  qualified  to  discern  rational- 
ism when  I  met  it.  The  fountain  heads  of  our  present- 
day  education — the  college  and  seminary — constitute  our 
problem. 

You  ought  to  know  that  these  modernists  can  talk  unc- 
tiously  about  the  meek  and  lowly  Jesus,  the  love  of  God, 
human  brotherhood,  the  glory  of  character,  and  all  that. 
Similarly  Ingersoll  also  was  wont  to  eulogize  character 
while  he  would  cut  its  tap-root.  They  have  imbibed  the 
ethical  spirit  of  Christianity,  and  while  they  continually 
handle  "the  Word  of  God  deceitfully,"  yet  they  veneer 
their  false  teaching  by  the  use  of  our  Christian  terms, 
which  terms  they  have  stolen,  and  in  which  they  have 
put  a  new  content,  so  that  they  almost  "deceive  the  very 
elect."  Dr.  Fosdick  has  even  gone  so  far  as  to  call  the 
fundamental  truths  of  our  holy  religion,  as  the  Virgin 
Birth,  the  Atonement,  the  Resurrection,  etc.,  only  the 
"dead-line  around  the  Christian  Church." 


20  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


THE   RATIONALISTS'   OBJECTIVE 

But  what  is  the  objective  that  Dr.  Fosdick  and  the 
rationaUsts  have  in  view?  It  is  generally  believed  that 
this  movement  is  strongly  supported  by  a  well-known 
financial  magnate,  who  is  backing  it  in  most  of  the  lead- 
ing denominations,  in  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  and  Y.  W.  C.  A., 
in  subsidized  educational  institutions  and  press,  and 
through  timid  and  active  servants  on  mission  and  church 
boards.  What  is  their  objective?  First,  it  is  the  uniting 
of  Protestantism;  second,  the  uniting  of  Christendom — 
Roman,  Greek,  and  Protestant ;  and  third,  the  establish- 
ing of  a  universal  brotherhood — the  federation  of  the 
world — when  all  class  hatred  and  strife  will  have  ceased, 
and  the  race  will  have  found  itself  finally  evolved  into 
the  millennium.  In  short,  it  is  a  great  "Church  Trust" 
that  this  financial  magnate  and  the  descendants  from  the 
jungle  have  in  view. 

Well,  if  this  is  their  objective,  does  it  not  seem  that 
their  attack  upon  fundamental  Christian  truths  is  suicidal 
to  its  attainment?  Would  it  not  appear  that  a  defense 
of  the  great  truths  of  the  Bible  would  tend  to  accelerate 
the  much  desired  Christian  unity  for  which  saints  of  God 
earnestly  pray? 

Dr.  Fosdick  charges  the  orthodox  people  with  turning 
the  "churches  into  cock-pits,"  because  they  would  "con- 
tend earnestly  for  the  faith."  But  by  his  attacks  upon 
the  inspiration  of  the  Bible,  the  Virgin  Birth  of  Christ, 
the  Atonement  and  other  fundamental  Christian  truths, 
he  is  healing  the  breaches  in  Protestantism  and  bringing 
a  glorious  unity  in  sight!  That  is  like  a  neighbor  pro- 
fessing a  passionate  love  for  peace  and  good  fellowship 
in  his  neighborhood  while  placing  dynamite  beneath  the 
homes  in  his  block.  Dr.  Fosdick  is  attacking  the  Bible, 
its  miracles.  Saviour,  etc.,  while  crying  "unity,"  "fel- 
lowship," "brotherhood,"  "love"!  "Consistency  thou 
art  a  jewel."     Let  us  hope  that  the  rationalists  will 


THE  VIRGIN   BIRTH  21 

soon  learn  that  "Truth  crushed  to  earth  will  rise 
again." 

If  the  above  financial  magnate  would  reveal  a  frac- 
tion of  the  same  shrewdness  in  his  agitation  for  church 
union  that  he  and  his  associates  have  shown  in  creating 
a  monopoly  of  business,  they  would  quickly  change  their 
tactics.  But  having  rejected  the  Word  of  God  it  is  a 
humble  path  to  return  to  the  truth.  Will  the  rational- 
ists repent  and  return?  The  modernists  have  done  more 
in  recent  years  to  retard  the  movement  toward  Protest- 
ant solidarity  than  has  any  force  or  sect  in  all  the  history 
of  the  Christian  Church.  The  first  great  step  toward 
Church  union  is  an  acknowledgment  of  the  Bible  as  the 
veritable  Word  of  God.  Here  the  Roman  Catholic  and 
Greek  Catholic  and  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  Protestant 
churches  stand.  The  rationalists  are  a  devisive,  destruc- 
tive element.  They  cannot  succeed.  Unity  can  only  be 
attained  as  a  result  of  absolute  loyalty  to  Jesus  Christ. 
Crown  Him  as  Lord  and  Saviour,  and  honor  and  sub- 
mit to  His  infallible  Word,  and  the  first  long  step  will 
have  been  taken  toward  a  true  Christian  fellowship  and 
brotherhood.  But  fulminating  in  pulpits  and  press  and 
universities  for  a  new  Christian  brotherhood,  while  kind- 
ling fires  of  discord  in  the  churches  and  educational  in- 
stitutions by  their  attacks  upon  the  Bible  is  not  the  road 
on  which  to  reach  so  great  a  goal.  God  will  see  to  it  that 
true  progress  in  that  direction  shall  not  be  made  by  a 
rationalistic  propaganda. 

Bishop  Warren  A.  Candler  of  Atlanta,  in  the  Florida 
Christian  Advocate,  says : 

Dr.  Fosdick  is  a  trustee  of  the  Rockefeller  Foundation, 
and  in  1919  he  published  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  an  article 
fiercely  attacking  the  orthodox  churches  and  predicting  their 
revolution  or  overthrow  by  the  soldiers  as  soon  as  the  heroic 
boys  were  returned  from  France.  His  friend  and  associate.  John 
D.  Rockefeller,  Jr.,  had  published  a  similar  paper  in  the  Satur- 
day Evening  Post  of  February  9th,  1918,  under  the  caption: 
'The  Christian  Church.  What  of  Its  Future?'  and  broadcasted 
it  over  the  land  in  pamphlet  form  'with  the  compliments'  of 


22  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 

the  opulent  author.  The  predictions  of  Dr.  Fosdick  and  Mr. 
John  D.  Rockefeller,  Jr.,  have  utterly  failed.  The  soldiers 
who  were  Christians,  and  survived  the  war,  have  gone  to  work 
in  the  church  as  aforetime  If  any  change  is  noticeable  it  is 
their  increased  zeal  and  confident  faith.  The  churches  which 
these  two  prophets  assured  the  public  would  have  to  abandon 
their  creed  or  perish  have  done  neither,  but  are  more  pros- 
perous than  ever. 

Having  failed  as  a  prophet,  Dr.  Fosdick  returns  as  a 
'sapper  and  miner'  to  the  task  of  overthrowing  the  orthodox 
Christianity  of  our  country.  As  a  Baptist  preacher  he  ful- 
minates from  a  Presbyterian  pulpit  his  radical  utterances. 
Well,  he  can  succeed  no  better  in  his  present  plan  than  he  did 
as  a  prophet.  Once  the  people  and  preachers  know  who  he  is 
and  what  he  is  up  to,  the  danger  from  anything  he  has  said 
or  may   say   will   have   passed. 

A    COMMON    CANARD    EXPOSED 

But  Dr.  Fosdick  declares  that  the  scholarship  of  the 
world  is  on  the  side  of  the  rationalists,  and  that  those 
who  hold  their  views  are  as  devout  and  noble  in  Chris- 
tian character  as  are  the  evangelical  hosts  who  consti- 
tute ninety  per  cent,  of  the  Christian  people.  In  fact, 
he  labors  to  give  the  impression  that  unless  you  agree  with 
the  rationalists  you  will  become  an  intellectual  fossil, 
"guilty  of  crucifying  your  highest  intelligence."  Such 
statements  do  not  merit  a  denial. 

With  his  sermon  sent  out  to  the  pastors,  someone  had 
a  slip  enclosed  in  which  the  claim  is  made  that  Dr.  Fos- 
dick is  preaching  to  the  largest  congregation  in  New 
York,  thus  giving  the  impression  that  the  people  have 
gone  over  to  his  views ;  but  he  forgot  to  tell  the  public 
that  Dr.  Fosdick  is  preaching  to  a  congregation  com- 
posed of  three  churches,  which  united  in  the  Old  First 
Church,  in  vv^hich  edifice  only  about  1,000  persons  can 
be  accommodated.  This  slip  did  not  state  that  when 
Dr.  Fosdick  preached  in  the  Town  Hall  in  this  City, 
after  having  been  widely  advertised  by  the  Church  Fed- 
eration, he  succeeded  in  gathering  about  300  persons. 
We  make  no  boast  of  this:  but  here  in  Tent  Evangel  we 


THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH  23 

are  preaching'  to  as  many  persons  as  could  be  accommo- 
dated twice  over  in  the  I'^irst  Presbyterian  Cliurch,  and 
we  have  been  repeating-  this  for  twenty  years,  though  I 
had  no  intention  of  parading  this  fact  all  over  America. 
True  Christians  detest  such  an  exhibtion  of  eg"o.  Those 
who  truly  know  Christ  do  not  resort  to  such  misleading 
exhibtions  of  the  flesh,  and  I  must  apologize  for  even 
making  mention  of  such  a  matter  on  this  platform. 

But  let  us  examine  more  closely  the  charge  that 
the  Evangelical  people  are  the  enemies  of  science 
and  learning.  When,  in  the  modern  world,  did  the 
greatest  revival  of  learning  begin?  Was  it  not  with 
the  Protestant  Reformation  in  Europe?  And  who 
were  the  leaders  in  this  movement?  Were  they  not 
Orthodox  Christians  whose  teachings  Dr.  Fosdick  has 
repudiated?  But  the  children  of  those  reformers,  who 
make  up  ninety  per  cent,  of  Protestantism  today,  Dr. 
Fosdick  classed  with  the  Roman  Catholic  Hierarchy 
that  condemned  to  death  Galileo  for  declaring  that 
the  earth  is  round.  How  puerile  is  such  an  utterance, 
I  will  leave  you  to  judge.  Have  we  not  inherited  our 
modern  political  and  religious  freedom  largely  from 
the  evangelical  people  who  constitute  Orthodox 
Christianity?  Were  not  Savonarola  and  Luther  and 
Huss  and  Knox  and  Latimer  and  Cranmer  and  Zwingli 
and  Cromwell  and  Wesley  and  Gladstone  and  Roger 
Williams  and  most  of  the  Pilgrims,  Puritans,  and 
fathers  of  the  American  Revolution,  and  the  Orthodox 
Churches  that  led  in  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves, 
and  millions  beside,  who  suffered  and  bled  and  died 
for  the  world's  political  and  spiritual  freedom,  all 
Orthodox  Protestants?  Dr.  Fosdick  knows  they 
were,  yet  he  throws  it  into  our  face  that  Evangelica' 
Protestantism  is  an  apostle  of  "ignorance"  and  "re- 
action." 


24  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 

THE    RATIONALISTS'    CONTRIBUTION 

What  contribution  have  the  rationalists  made  to 
our  store  of  knowledge?  They  have  given  us  Spinoza, 
w^ho  was  the  father  of  modern  pantheism ;  they  have 
given  us  Tom  Paine,  the  infidel,  who  was  the  Ameri- 
can pioneer  in  destructive  criticism  of  the  Bible ;  they 
have  given  us  Wellhausen,  who  created  the  system 
that  has  poisoned  our  modern  religious  education ; 
thev  have  given  us  Theodore  Parker  the  father  of 
American  Unitarianism,  a  system  of  denial  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures  that  disrupted  Congregationalism 
in  New  England,  and  turned  most  of  her  educa- 
tional institutions  over  to  rationalism ;  they  have 
given  us  our  present-day  Union  Seminary,  that  has 
been  disowned  by  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Pres- 
byterian Church ;  they  have  corrupted  many  of  our 
modern  universities  in  which  the  authority  of  God's 
Word  is  rejected;  they  have  given  us  our  exploiters  of 
labor  who  are  striving  to  subject  our  churches  and 
educational  institutions  to  the  control  of  a  great 
financial  power  and  w^hich  has  brought  upon  the 
churches,  by  their  subtle  denials  of  Christ's  miraculous 
birth,  atonement,  resurrection  and  coming  again,  the 
greatest  problem  the  churches  have  ever  had  to  en- 
counter ;  they  have  given  us  their  unproved  doctrine 
of  Darwinian  evoluton,  that  man  has  descended  from 
fish,  lizards,  apes  and  monkeys;  they  have  turned  our 
sacred  edifices  into  places  of  amusement,  and  our 
pulpits  over  to  Christ  rejectors,  dealersi  in  social  plati- 
tudes; they  have  divided  the  churches  into  warring 
camps,  thus  forcing  us  into  a  struggle  to  save  Chris- 
tianity, not  from  the  old  infidelty  outside  but  from  the 
more  dangerous  infidelity  now  inside  the  Church  of 
God.  And  the  rationalists  have  also  given  us  the 
philosophy  of  Marxian,  economic  evolution  and  revo- 
lution, which  has  borne  fruit  in  the  modern  political 


THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH  25 

anarchist,  the  communist,  the  bolshevist,  who  have 
prostrated  and  strangled  Russia  to  her  political  death, 
and  who  have  produced  our  political  criminals  that 
wreck  our  trains,  burn  our  factories,  murder  our  peace- 
ful citizens,  turn  our  country  that  protects  them  into 
a  charnel  house  of  death,  and  replace  the  Stars  and 
Stripes,  the  emblem  of  liberty  and  justice,  with  the 
dyed-in-hell  red  rag-  of  an  army  of  fiends  incarnate. 
That  is  what  Dr.  Fosdick's  school  of!  ratonalism, 
evolution,  and  a  subtle  denial  of  the  fundamental 
truths  of  the  Bible  has  contributed  to  our  modern 
civilization. 

Is  it  true  that  Orthodox  Christianity  is  the  enemy 
of  "progress,"  "new  knowledge,"  "education"?  I  re- 
pudiate the  charge !  Allow  me  to  submit  to  you  a 
list  of  names  furnished  by  Rev.  Harris  Gregg,  names 
that  are  unparalleled  in  the  annals  of  fame,  all  of  whom 
were  advocates  ot  Orthodox  Christianity. 

First:  Among  lawyers  and  statesmen  accustomed  to  weigh 
evidence,  and  who  believed  in  the  Son  of  God,  his  virgin  birth 
and  redeeming  death:  Grotius,  Bacon,  Sir  Matthew  Hale, 
Cromwell,  Blackstone,  John  Seldon,  Sir  William  Jones,  Lord 
Lyttleton,  Gladstone.  John  Bright,  Earl  Cairns,  George  Wash- 
ington, Chief  Justice  Marshall,  Chancellor  Kent,  Judge  Story, 
Chief  Justice  Parsons,  Greenleaf,  Clay,  Webster,  Seward,  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  and  Theodore  Roosevelt. 

Second:  Among  scientists  who  have  believed  in  the  virgin 
birth  and  redeeming  death  of  Christ:  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  Leib- 
nitz, Sir  John  Herschell,  Linnsrus,  Kepler,  Pascal,  Davy,  Fara- 
day, Cuvier,  Boyle;  Doctors  Harvey  Sydenham,  Boerhaave. 
Rush,  Simpson,  Lionel  Beale  and  Howard  Kelly;  the  Duke  of 
Argyle,  David  Brewster,  Prof.  Dana,  Prof.  Hitchcock,  Prof. 
Mitchell,  Prof.  Romanes,  Prof.  G.  Frederick  Wright,  Hugh 
Miller,  Prof.  Guyot,  Louis  Pasteur,  Kelvin,  Sir  William  Daw- 
son and  617  members  of  the  British  Scientific  Society,  whose 
paper  is  in  the   Bodleian   Library  at   Oxford. 

Literature,  spending  itself  largely  in  the  realms  of  the  im- 
aginative faculty,  and  philosophy,  losing  itself  in  the  labyrinth 
of  its  tangled,  empty  reasonings,  and  scholastic  dialect,  ever  re- 
maining in  its  own  blind  alleys,  refuse  to  be  bound  to  historical 
evidence,  and  know  little  or  nothing  of  the  training  of  exact 


26  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 

mathematics,  and  yet  Spencer,  Shakespeare,  Milton,  Addison, 
Samuel  Johnson  and  Coleridge,  all  believed  in  the  Bible;  and 
last  but  not  least  Sir  Walter  Scott  said:  'Christ  is  the  Arche- 
type of  both  the  Bible  and  Nature.'  On  his  deathbed  he  said: 
'Bring  me  the  Book.'  'What  Book?'  inquired  his  physician. 
'There  is  but  one  Book,'  was  the  reply  of  that  immortal. 

But  Dr.  Fosdick  would  have  you  believe  that  or- 
thodox Christianity  is  the  foe  of  science,  education, 
knowledge,  of  modern  culture. 

John  Locke  spent  the  last  fourteen  years  of  his  life  reading 
only  the  Bible.  Hegel's  philosophy  has  spread  pantheism  into 
higher  criticism  in  Bible  study,  Unitarianism  in  religion.  Re- 
formed Judaism  in  Israel,  Evolution  in  Science,  and  Marxian 
Socialism  and  Bolshevism  in  the  world's  social  life.  Hegel 
was  the  follower  of  Spinoza,  the  follower  of  the  Greek  philos- 
ophers, the  follower  of  the  Spiritualism  of  the  magicians  of 
Egypt  and  Babylon.  And  yet  Hegel  on  his  deathbed  would 
allow  only  the  Bible  to  be  read  to  him.  And  Huxley  requested 
that  Christ's  resurrection  chapter  (I  Cor.  15)  be  read  at  his 
grave. 

The  highest  and  final  reach  of  man's  fallen  mind  is,  God 
must  be.  It  cannot  reach  further.  But  this  leaves  man  lost 
and  God  unknown.  But  the  primary  message  of  God's  Word 
is  "I  Am,"  which  brings  God's  personality  and  presence  to  us. 
with  its  light,  life  and  love.  This  is  God's  adjustment  to  our 
spiritual,  mental,  moral,  physical,   temporal  and  eternal  need. 

Jesus  Christ  says : 

I  am  come  that  they  might  have  life,  and  that  they  might 
have  it  more  abundantly.  I  am  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the 
life.  I  give  unto  them  eternal  life;  and  they  shall  never  perish, 
neither  shall  any  one  pluck  them  out  of  my  hand.  I  am  the 
resurrection  and  the  life;  he  that  believeth  in  me,  though  he 
were  dead,  yet  shall  he  live.  And  whosoever  liveth  and  be- 
lieveth in  me  shall  never  die. 

Are  not  such  words  as  these  a  sequel  to  the  Virgin 
Birth? 

Who  is  this  Christ  whom  the  rationalists  reject, 
from  whose  thorn-pierced  brow  they  would  wrench 
the  croAvn  of  Deity?    Who  is  He? 

He  is  the  Author  of  the  Book  that  declares  Him  to  be 
the  unique  Son  of  God  by  the  resurrection  from  the  dead, 
the  Incarnate  Son,  as  predicted  by  prophets,  declared  by  Him- 
self, by  His  disciples,  by  trustworthy  historical  records,  by 
the  Holy  Spirit,  by  the  presence  of  jews  among  Gentile  na- 


THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH  27 

tions,  by  the  Bible  among  the  various  peoples  and  tribes  in 
over  600  languages,  by  the  gifts  of  spiritual  and  eternal  life, 
as  a  matter  of  experience  and  proof,  by  His  offer  of  eternal 
life  to  all  who  will  take  it,  among  all  classes,  ages  and  nations, 
by  His  salvation  which  meets  the  universal  consciousness  of 
sin  and  need,  by  His  atonement  which  proclaims  God's 
righteousness  and  reveals  His  love  and  grace  for  sinful  men, 
by  His  promise  of  the  resurrection  and  complete  salvation  for 
body,  soul  and  spirit. 

Can  the  one  who  denies  the  Virgin  Birth  believe 
any  of  these  truths  about  Jesus  Christ?  No!  Can 
he  see  the  messianic,  prophetic,  scientific  and  moral 
unity  and  glory  of  Christ  and  His  truth?  No!  Can 
he  see  that  Christ  is  the  "Supreme  Theme,"  "Perfect 
Example,"  "Final  Witness,"  "Channel  of  Life  and 
Blessing,*'  "Executor  of  Judgments,"  "Fulfiller'  of 
Covenants,"  the  only  Hope  of  the  world?    No! 

Ah,  no,  my  friends !  Destroy  this  truth,  which  is 
the  secret  of  all  that  is  noblest  in  our  civilization,  and 
you  veil  the  face  of  God,  shut  out  the  Sun  of  hope 
and  comfort  fromi  the  life  of  Man,  and  our  sorrowing, 
suffering  world  will  again  return  to  savagery.  But, 
thank  God,  "the  Light  has  come."  "The  people  that 
sat  in  darkness  saw  a  great  Light,  and  to  them  that 
sat  in  the  region  and  shadow  of  death  Light  is  sprung 
up."  (Matt.  4:14).  The  immortal  Tennyson  had  the 
vision  of  the  Christ  incarnate  when  he  wrote : 

Strong  Son  of  God,  Immortal  Love, 
Though   we   who  have   not  seen   Thy   face. 
By  faith  and  faith  alone  embrace. 
Believing  where   we  cannot   prove. 

God  be  praised,  the  Incarnation  is  a  fact!  What 
glory,  fellowship,  joy  and  peace  for  men !  We  have 
found  the  Father!  "He  that  hath  seen  Me  hath  seen 
the  Father,"  said  Jesus  Christ.  Because  "the  Word 
became  flesh"  in  the  womb  of  the  Holy  Virgin,  we 
can  now  anchor  our  faith  to  H-is  covenant  which  He 
sealed  by   His  own   precious   blood   and  attested  by 


28  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 

His  resurrection,  that  "Unto  them  that  look  for  him, 
shall  he  appear  again  the  second  time,  apart  from  sin, 
unto  salvation."  (Heb.  9:28.)  Therefore,  lift  up  your 
heads,  O  saints  of  God,  and  shout  aloud  with  the  song 
of  triumph : 

All  hail  the  power  of  Jesus'   name, 

Let   angels    prostrate   fall, 
Bring  forth  the  royal  diadem 

And  crown  Him  Lord  of  all. 


Copyright,  1922,  by  G.  W.  McPherson 
All  Rights  Reserved 


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DATE  DUE 

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PRINTED  INU.»A. 

^|l     KE      JF: 


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BS2423.1.IV1174 

The  virgin  birth  ;  a  reply  to  Dr.  Harry 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1   1012  00029  0157 


